Street naming and numbering

Brief Description         

The Local Authority has a legal responsibility to register premises for Street Name and Numbering under the British Standard 7666 and the current legislations:                         

Town Improvement Clauses Act 1847 Section 64 and 65

The Public Health Act 1925 Section 17, 18 and 19

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Our application can be found here

Guidance

Every new or converted premises must have an official address. The council will only accept applications from premises owners, not occupiers or tenants. Applications must be fully completed with the requested information. The street name and numbering service is chargeable.

Charges Effective from 1st April 2024

Adding or changing a name to your premises

Adding or changing a name to a residential property is free of charge. The requested name must be agreed by the Local Authority and no other premises within the same postcode area can have the same name. The origin of the requested name must be stated within the application form. The Local Authority will not be able to grant house names which originate from a living person. If the chosen name originates from someone who is deceased, the Local Authority can only grant this if the individual has been deceased for 50+ years.  It is the responsibility of the property owner to inform Land Registry of any address changes.

Commercial Premises

All new build commercial premises will be addressed as Unit. The Local Authority is unable to register premises solely under a business organisational name. Customers can request the business organisation be added to the address as an alias and will be registered as such.

New Builds and Infill plots

New build properties which are being developed on a street which has a pre-existing numbering sequence will be registered as far as possible within the existing numbering sequence using an Infill. Infill plots will be registered with the appropriate suffix e.g., 1A, 1B etc into the street which provides access to the properties. Where streets are not numbered, as in many rural areas, the premises may simply be named.

Street Signage

You will find contact details regarding street signage here

New Streets

When submitting an application that requires new streets to be created the Local Authority will need to agree on the names. The Local Authority will make appropriate suggestions wherever necessary. The same rules apply for naming streets as they do for naming or renaming properties. Plans will be required to be submitted indicating the streets to be created, entrances to all properties based upon the normal convention of odd and even house numbers on either side of the street. Properties should not be numbered sequentially on the same side of the street unless there are no properties along the length of the street.

Postcodes

Royal Mail are responsible for allocating postcodes. Royal Mail will only allocate postcodes when the request has come from the Authority.

Not Yet Built 

Properties under construction will be added to Royal Mail’s Not Yet Built service. This service is specifically designed to assist developers with mainline service providers.

Postal Address File

Once the premises has become complete to Royal Mail standards (safe to deliver mail too and has a letterbox) the premises will be upgraded onto Royal Mail’s PAF service. The Local Authority require notification for the property to be upgraded and shown on Royal Mail’s online service. Failure to notify the council of a property completion and promote to a full PAF registration may cause issues on future service delivery to that address or hold up conveyancing tasks at that property.

Postcode Finder - Find an address | Royal Mail Group Ltd

Our Policy

The Council's Street Naming and Numbering advice policy can be downloaded here